Ghayal Once Again

I freely admit I was
surprised.... or better to say SHOCKED at how much I enjoyed this one
and how good it was. Funny thing is I remember liking Ghayal, but
before I watched the new film I had to re-read my old review and
watch several scene on youtube, for I admit the film did not stay in
mind too much. With memories refreshed and the mood set, I dared to
follow Sunny Deol down the path he so often trips on....

What I liked about the
movie was that it truly was a sequel: drawing the basics from the
original, not erasing them, not altering them and most importantly
not rehashing them. Ajay Mehra has the same anger that drove him
through the first Ghayal for his Filmfare trophy back in 1991, he
gets emotional over his family and he has also not come out of his
previous ordeal unscathed or healed. Not wearing the load of troubles
on his own, Sunny Deol is ably helped by four young protagonists.
These young ones manage a difficult task of winning you over in a
very short time and without much of an introduction. What truly made
me sit with my eyes glued to the screen was everything in between the
start of the mad chase through the shopping mall practically to the
big "characters are related" twist. Revelation of one of
the girls being Ajay´s daughter was fine with me, no matter how
filmy.

However right after that
there was the CGI helicopter doing very un-helicopter-y things and
shit, and it nearly completely destroyed any believability factor.
But truly, Ghayal Once Again is fast-paced, straightforward and
thrilling. Since none of the four young people is a "hero"
or "heroine", you cannot predict whether or not they will
die/be captured, and the scene in which they are desperately running
from the bad guys, getting injured and severely hurt in the process,
taxed my nerves quite a bit. Their pain also seemed so real I kept
shedding tears from scene to scene, an occurrence quite rare in
"let´s beat the shit out of the evil ones" kind of films.
Even Ajay Mehra himself is not above pain and injuries. It was good
to see flashbacks to the original films, including the lovely
Meenakshi Sheshadri, and I had to wonder why the makers did not take
enough trouble to even get her to redub that one dialog which is
used.

As for the rest of the
cast, the ever reliable Om Puri returns, and Soha Ali Khan reminds us
she exists. I was relieved that any romantic angle between her and
Sunny remained unexplored, indeed the relationship is presented in a
way they may truly be just very good friends. If there is anything
Sunny needs to stay clear off it´s romancing anyone under the age of
45 (I Love NY still gives me creeps and nightmares). Narendra Jha as the main villain is cool, ruthless and calculative, yet not above fear and other human emotions. He does a commendable job.

I am not a huge fan of
Sunny Deol, but once in a while he comes up with stuff that makes me
believe he is greatly underrated today. I had little to none faith in
this project, but Sunny pulled it off more than well. Ghayal Once
Again easily ranks among the better, if not the best, sequels
Bollywood has churned out in past ten years.